ACTION

ACTION was a federal agency established by President Richard Nixon on 1 July 1971. Its intention was to make the service organizations established during the 1960s operate more efficiently. The programs absorbed were the Active Corps of Executives, the PEACE CORPS, the Retired Senior Volunteer Program, the Service Corps of Retired Executives, the National Student Volunteer Program, and Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA). In the 1980s, the Reagan administration urged private groups to take some of the load borne by VISTA, and VISTA itself was cut in personnel, thereby diminishing the power and influence of ACTION. In 1990, the National and Community Service Act further weakened ACTION's administrative role, and in 1993, the National and Community Service Trust Act absorbed ACTION into the Corporation for National and Community Service.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

"The National and Community Service Act of 1990." Available from http://www.cns.gov/about/ogc/legislation.html.

United States Congress, Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Special Subcommittee on Human Resources. Action Act of 1972 and Action Domestic Programs. Joint hearing before the Special Subcommittee on Human Resources and the Subcommittee on Aging of the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, United States Senate, 92nd Congress, Second session on S. 3450…and related bills, Older Americans Action Programs. Washinton, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1972.

Kirk H. Beetz